Pennsylvania university supports race-based STEM fellowship
An SRU professor said that the 'key goal of LSAMP is to increase America’s STEM workforce by increasing STEM participation in traditionally underrepresented minorities.'
The program is race-restricted and only available to students of certain races.
Slippery Rock University (SRU) in Pennsylvania supports a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) program that is off-limits to students of certain races.
On Aug. 29, SRU announced that it joined Millersville, East Stroudsburg, and West Chester universities in Pennsylvania to offer students the Keystone Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation STEM program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
According to Evan Guiney, an SRU professor and LSAMP program director, “[t]he key goal of LSAMP is to increase America’s STEM workforce by increasing STEM participation in traditionally underrepresented minorities.”
The NSF states that the LSAMP program is meant to help those who are “underrepresented” in STEM fields, specifically “Blacks and African-Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders.”
Program beneficiaries will work together with an SRU professor “on a one-month research opportunity within their major,” and will also receive $2,500, as well as “room and board and the chance to present their research at state, regional or national conferences.”
Molly University, a Catholic school in New York, has also recently become a beneficiary of the LSAMP program, having received $3.5 million to support it this June.
Certain other academic programs also shut out students on the basis of their race.
[RELATED: Michigan med school ends race-based scholarship after civil rights complaint]
Students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of North Dakota filed a lawsuit this August against the Department of Education after they were refused entry into the McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program.
According to the lawsuit, “[t]he McNair Program excludes many students because of their race. . . . Defendants say these racial exclusions are necessary to racially balance the number of graduate students in America by giving a preference to so-called ‘underrepresented’ students. But make no mistake: the word ‘underrepresented’ is a euphemism for certain minority groups preferred by Defendants.”
Campus Reform has reached out to Slippery Rock University and the National Science Foundation for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
